By Liam Verster

student nutrition program

Grande Prairie Salvation Army to create food assistance program for school kids

Apr 2, 2020 | 2:22 PM

The Grande Prairie Salvation Army has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the Province, to develop and run a program that supplies vulnerable students and their families with food and/or meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Salvation Army is one of nine non-profits in Alberta to receive funding grants to create nutrition assistance programs for K-12 students while in-school classes are cancelled.

Executive Director of the Salvation Army in Grande Prairie, Captain Peter Kim, says they already provide food security to vulnerable families through the food bank, and the funds will help expand the current supports to reach students and families struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are going to the drawing board to make sure that we screen families to make sure that [the new program] isn’t being abused, and that it’s also being given to those who are truly in need. We follow a process, currently, through our food bank intake, and we’ll be following that same process but modified to include questions about how COVID has affected their family, and how many students they may have living at home, and how much support they need.”

He says the specifics of the new program haven’t been determined yet, but there are some ideas that may work for providing food and support directly to families in need.

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“We may not look directly at a meal program, we might look more towards ‘How do we supplement our current hamper program for the families?’ and we’re looking at different possibilities at how that could look. Whether it’s additional help with the current hampers, or if it’s additional supports through the supermarkets directly, or whatnot.”

Kim adds that, before the pandemic forced the closure of schools, food assistance programs for students were provided by the school divisions. He says the Salvation Army will need to work with the school boards, in order to find out what their programs had looked like before the closures, and how many families they had supported, which Kim suspects to be in the hundreds.

He says they not only want to provide support to those families, but the others who are being affected by the coronavirus pandemic as well, and will need to consider all the needs in the community before launching the new program.

Kim says, since a food assistance program is a new venture for the Salvation Army, they will need to determine how many people this $300,000 grant will help, and how long those supports could last.

“We’re going to do the math around it, to make sure that we are able to do that fairly and consistently.”

Kim adds this is great news for the community and the families who are struggling with having students home from school, and he is grateful that the government has provided these funds to help support vulnerable families in Grande Prairie, and in Alberta.

The other non-profits benefiting from the nutrition assistance program grants are:

• e4c – Edmonton: $375,000
• Hope Mission – Edmonton and area: $375,000
• Calgary Meals on Wheels: $375,000
• Brown Bagging for Calgary: $375,000
• Breakfast Club of Canada – Fort McMurray and area: $300,000
• Lethbridge Food Bank: $300,000
• Medicine Hat and District Food Bank: $300,000
• The Mustard Seed Red Deer – Central Alberta: $300,000

Kim doesn’t know the timeline for when the money will be given to the Salvation Army, but hopes that it comes soon, so they can launch the new program to start helping those in need as soon as possible.